Assuming for the sake of argument that women are sentient, but also that they have absolutely no free will when it comes to sexual relationships and that they can be piloted like a remote-controlled drone by a man who has cracked the human sexual signalling language (a hypothesis only slightly more extreme than the PUA hypothesis), that would still leave us with the question of how to maximise the utility of these strange, mindless creatures given that they are sentient and their utility counts as much as any other sentient being's.

PUA might be compatible with this if you assume that just by chance the real utility function of the human female just happens to be maximised by the behaviour which maximises the utility of the PUA, which is to say that you maximise the utility of all human females by having a one night stand with them if you find them physically attractive but not inclined to be subservient, and a longer-term relationship with them under some circumstances if you want regular sex and you can manage the relationship so that you are dominant. (We could call this the Weak Gor Hypothesis).

However this has not been demonstrated, and it might turn out that in some cases women are happier if they are communicated with honestly, treated as equal partners in a relationship, given signals that they are high-status in the form of compliments and "romantic" gestures and so forth. If that was the case then ethically some weight would have to be given to these sources of utility, and it would be ethically questionable to talk down such behaviour as "beta" since it would have turned out that the alpha/beta distinction did not match up with a real distinction between utility-maximising and non-utility-maximising behaviour in all cases.

I should disclose immediately that I am one of the people who find the PUA community distasteful on a variety of levels, intellectual and ethical, and this may colour my viewpoint.

The PUA community may present themselves, and think of themselves, as a "disreputable source of accurate information" but in the absence of controlled trials I don't think the claim to accuracy is well-founded. Sticking strictly to the scientific literature is not so much ignoring the elephant in the room as suspending judgment as to whether the elephant exists until we can turn the lights on.

If it's been said already I apologise, but it seems obvious to me that an ethical rationalist's goals in relationship-seeking should be to seek a relationship that creates maximal utility for both parties, and that scientific evidence about how to find suitable partners and behave in the relationship so as to maximise utility for both partners is a great potential source of human happiness. It's obvious from even the briefest perusal of PUA texts that the PUA community are concerned very much with maximising their own utility and talking down the status of male outgroup members and women in general, but not with honestly seeking means to maximise the utility of all stakeholders.

Given that their methodology is incompatible with scientific reasoning and their attitudes incompatible with maximising global utility for all sentient stakeholders, I think it's quite correct to leave their claims out of a LW analysis of human sexual relationships.

I should disclose immediately that I am one of the people who find the PUA community distasteful on a variety of levels, intellectual and ethical, and this may colour my viewpoint.

The PUA community may present themselves, and think of themselves, as a "disreputable source of accurate information" but in the absence of controlled trials I don't think the claim to accuracy is well-founded. Sticking strictly to the scientific literature is not so much ignoring the elephant in the room as suspending judgment as to whether the elephant exists until we can turn the lights on.

If it's been said already I apologise, but it seems obvious to me that an ethical rationalist's goals in relationship-seeking should be to seek a relationship that creates maximal utility for both parties, and that scientific evidence about how to find suitable partners and behave in the relationship so as to maximise utility for both partners is a great potential source of human happiness. It's obvious from even the briefest perusal of PUA texts that the PUA community are concerned very much with maximising their own utility and talking down the status of male outgroup members and women in general, but not with honestly seeking means to maximise the utility of all stakeholders.

Given that their methodology is incompatible with scientific reasoning and their attitudes incompatible with maximising global utility for all sentient stakeholders, I think it's quite correct to leave their claims out of a LW analysis of human sexual relationships.

Your point about agreeableness is well taken, so I looked up his reference, Figueredo et al. (2006).

First, keep in mind he's using agreeableness in the OCEAN sense, not in the sense of "a person who always agrees to everything". So it's not diametrically opposed to PUA belief, although I agree there's still a problem that has to be explained.

That brings us to the reference. Figueredo's study itself found no impact of agreeableness, but in the introduction, it cites eight previous studies that it said found "extraversion, openness, and agreeableness are reliably correlated with mating success". I looked up one of these studies, and it was on the success of long-term marital relationships, which is a whole different kettle of fish than the PUA's usual focus. So depending on the other seven studies I didn't have the energy to look up, they could both be right. It would have been nice if Luke had qualified that in his post, but really the fault was on Figueredo and not him.

Other than that, I would honestly like to hear what advice of Luke's you consider misleading. Again aside from the "Mean and Variance" section, it all seems pretty well referenced and backed up.

I'm confused - you seem to take it as a given that PUA techniques are the only/best tool for pursuing the many forms of relationship mentioned in the article. I'm by no means an expert, but I'd be surprised if PUA worked as well for, say, a woman trying to extend her list of partners with a man with a shared interest in classical music. (Quickly glancing at some lists, "get out there and meet people" seems to be good advice; but quickly approaching lots of partners may not work well in this case.)

Isn't it possible that the broader scope of this article justifies de-emphasizing pickup artistry? Even if you don't think that PUA should be avoided for its mind-killing properties, shouldn't we at least give lukeprog the benefit of the doubt? If nothing else, there may be follow-up articles dealing with this.

Thank you for the positive mention, but I'm afraid I disagree with your model of me. Luke is a far braver man than I to even enter this minefield; I won't condemn him for not dancing a merry jig on top of it too.

Luke originally tried to write an article referring to PUA. People told him this was controversial, not just among ignorant people but among long-time readers of this site, that it had always led to unpleasant flame wars in the past, and that it was making us look bad "abroad".

Now he seems to be writing more or less the same thing, but communicating it in a less offensive way. I don't fault him for leaving anything out yet because it's only been one post in a series. I don't think anything he wrote is actually false (well, I have issues with the 'Mean and Variance' section, but he retracted the meat of that). And I think he made the right decision in trying to pitch it to a wider audience.

Lukeprog, you have produced exactly that which we have been warned against: an article and a paradigm which has all the appearances and dressings of rationality (lots of citations, links to articles on decision theory, rationalist lingo), but which spectacularly fails to actually pursue the truth.

Vladimir_M puts it better than I could:

First, there is the conspicuous omission of any references to the PUA elephant in the room. The body of insight developed by this particular sort of people, whatever its faults, is of supreme practical importance for anyone who wants to formulate practical advice in this area. Without referencing it explicitly, one can either ignore it altogether and thus inevitably talk nonsense, or pretend to speak based solely on official academic literature, which is disingenuous and unfair in its failure to attribute credit and also misleading for those who would like to pursue their own research in the matter.....

he continues:

On the whole, the article is based on the premise that an accurate and no-nonsense analysis of the topic will result in something that sounds not just inoffensive, but actually strongly in line with various fashionable and high-status norms and ideals of the broader society. This premise however is flawed, and those who believe that this has in fact been accomplished should apply the powerful debiasing heuristic that says that when a seemingly rational discussion of some deeply problematic and controversial topic sounds pleasant and reassuring, there's probably something fishy going on

And finally:

So, what about the quality of advice that will be produced by a LW discussion on these topics operating under such constraints of respectability, where disreputable sources of accurate information are tabooed, a pretense must be maintained that the discourse is grounded in officially accredited scholarship and other high-status sources of information, and -- most important of all -- the entire discourse and its bottom line must produce a narrative that is in line with the respectable, high-status views of humanity and society? I am not at all optimistic, especially having seen what has been produced so far!

Yvain is also on point:

shy, nerdy men who can't find anyone who will love them because they radiate submissiveness and non-assertiveness, and women don't find this attractive. Most women do find dominant, high-testosterone people attractive

In three worlds collide, we were introduced to the "Order of Silent Confessors", which is "charged with guarding sanity, not morality". In this post especially, I feel that sanity is lying beaten and abused on the floor. I think we need the "Order of Silent Confessors" now.

As a start, Lukeprog, I think you should include the exerpts by vladimir_M and Yvain above in your article.